


The Sharp Side of a Soft Landing

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Series: A Learning Process [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Asexuality, Gen, Pansexual Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:34:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2178084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What they talk about when they don't talk about love. </p><p>OR </p><p>In which there is much talk, respectful and disrespectful, about sexuality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sharp Side of a Soft Landing

The being sitting at their table when Gamora came in for breakfast was heartbreakingly beautiful with a crystalline exoskeleton swirled with blues and greens like a delicate glass sculpture formed into a humanoid shape. When the head turned towards Gamora, the eyes proved to be deep set topaz gems in an utterly smooth face. 

“Hello,” a modulated computer voice said. The being twisted long fingers in the air that a device sitting on the opalescent chest turned into words. “My name is Darjit. Peter told me about you, Gamora. He says that he’s making enough food for everyone.” 

“Did he?” Gamora frowned, but settled into her usual spot on the right side of the table. Drax was already there, apparently stunned into silence by the appearance of the stranger. 

“I did,” Peter came out with a tray. “Darjit hasn’t had scrambled eggs before apparently.” 

“We do not have egg laying animals on my world,” Darjit’s eyes darted over the plate of orange, yellow and white fluff. “But I am eager to try.” 

Her line of work had trained Gamora perfectly on the art of looking without looking. She watched in fascination as Darjit speared the eggs with long pointed fingers and brought them not to the face, but a curious jagged opening in the opposing palm. Peter looked utterly serene about it, chatting to Darjit about card games of all things. Eventually Rocket wandered in, a yawn clinging to his mouth that stuttered to a stop mid-jaw crack when he spotted Darjit. Wide-eyed, he gave Gamora a significant look which she returned two-fold. 

“Is there still food?” Rocket climbed up beside Gamora. He had jerryrigged a scavenged chair that brought him level to the others without look too much like a child’s booster seat. 

“I even made you extra bacon,” Peter served it with a dopey smile. 

And oh. Oh. Rocket and Gamora exchanged another look. 

“Thanks,” Rocket took his plate and preceded to crumble the bacon over his eggs until it was one messy mash. 

“Fascinating,” Darjit said. “You choose to keep yourself fur covered?” 

“Excuse me?” Rocket’s head shot up and Gamora tensed, waiting for a fight. 

“I hope that isn’t rude,” Darjit signed quickly, the computer speeding up to compensate. “Does your species not choose form? I had been told that is often the case and Peter says it is true of Terrans.” 

“Yeah,” Rocket didn’t relax entirely, but he did start eating which was a good sign. “It’s not a choice.” 

“I had fur once,” Darjit’s hand motions slowed into a dreamy waver. “It shed when I became an adolescent. Perhaps I should try it again.” 

That effectively silenced the rest of them. Peter, high on whatever chemical dump happened to Terran brains after mating, nattered on obliviously. When the food was gone, Darjit gathered up a white linen bag, pressed the palm with the food slit to Peter’s cheek and then left. 

As soon as the Milano had sealed against her departure, they turned as one to Peter. 

“Wasn’t Darjit amazing?” He smiled at them, wide and innocent. 

“What was it?” Drax asked, eyes wide. 

“Not an it. Darjit prefers ‘they’ as a pronoun. Apparently it’s the closest thing common has to their native tongue,” Peter shrugged. “They approached me in the cavern last night. Apparently, their planet has like a...dunno what you’d call it. It’s a pretty conservative culture, but they let their kids go on a journey for a year or two before they go back and start a family.” 

“I thought that you preferred females of all species,” Drax went on and Gamora both winced on his behalf, yet was grateful he was there to ask the questions that would feel rude in her own mouth. 

“Why?” Peter sounded genuinely surprised. 

“Cause all the beings you usually bring on board look like humie standard females,” Rocket shrugged. 

“I’ve only brought back like...three? four?” Peter squinted as if trying to pick out faces from the past few months. “No, three for sure, since you guys started living here.” 

“Four,” Gamora cut in because she preferred accuracy. “If you count the Lunah.” 

“I didn’t sleep with her! She just needed a place to stay for the night.” 

“So you would take a male to your bed?” Drax’s brow wrinkled as if this thought couldn’t quite fit in his head. 

“Would. Have. Probably would again,” Peter sighed. “Is that a problem?” 

“No,” Drax said, confusion still leaking from every pore. “It is only...my people only prefer one or the other. Not both.” 

“I don’t prefer anything,” Peter said firmly. “I’m already going outside my species, seems sort of nitpicky to care what pronouns they use. Most of the people I sleep with are barely biologically compatible. Rocket gets it, right?” 

“Gets what?” Rocket asked, deceptively mild. 

“Well, I mean, there’s no one else like you that we know of, right?” 

“Right,” Rocket ground out. 

“So...anyone you have sex with is bound to be pretty different from you.” 

“I don’t have sex.” 

It was something Gamora had guessed ages ago, but she’d never bothered discussing with him. Why bring up a topic so fraught with potential embarrassment when they could be discussing bomb timers or the relative merits of light spectrums on a growing Groot? 

“Oh,” Peter sat back, taking this information in. “By choice?” 

“Depends on what your definition of choice is,” Rocket wiped his hands, letting the remains of egg crumble to the plate. Then he hopped out of his chair and walked off, tail waving in stiff warning as he went. 

“Good job, gears for brains,” Gamora growled. 

“What? What’d I do?” 

“Does his kind not discuss mating?” Drax took the remains of Rocket’s food and started in on it. “I know that it is considered taboo by some.” 

Gamora took a long breath through her nose and held it for twenty heartbeats before releasing it with painful slowness. It took concentration to repress natural instincts and concentration was a balm to her irritation. 

“He was made,” she said slowly as if speaking to very dim children. “They tailored him to their desires, not to have his own. Why would they create something that would be driven by base impulses?” 

She watched realization dawn over Peter’s face, the contortion of anger that gave way to sadness. 

“They took all of his choices,” Drax set down his fork. 

As had become nearly routine, Gamora’s feelings flipped on their head. These men with their vulnerabilities painted in their eyes drove her half-mad with their obliviousness that became empathy with the simplest of explanations. It was if the weaknesses of others had never before been explained to them and upon discovering the truth they became outraged on everyone’s behalf. 

“That sucks,” Peter grimaced. “Think he’d take an apology ammunition stash?” 

“I think he’d probably prefer you didn’t talk to him about.” 

“No words attached ammunition,” Peter agreed. 

Gamora didn’t follow her own advice. Instead, she left the ship and returned with a pile of small, sweet and crisp fruits. With care, she pared them into slices in a bowl and then brought them with her down into the bowels of the quiescent engine. Rocket had enmeshed himself into the guts of the hyperdrive with Groot acting as assistant. At two feet tall, Groot was pleased to be of some use again, handing up tools and stabilizing Rocket’s footing. 

“I am Groot,” he said cautiously when Gamora crammed herself into a small clear spot beside his pot. 

“It’s lunch time,” she assured him. “I’ve got a flavored water bottle for you and some fruit for himself.” 

“Fruit?” Rocket paused in his work. She couldn’t see his face, but his tail twitched in hopeful anticipation. 

“Yes. I tried it first. It seems similar to the ones we had on Klayon.” 

“Is this a bribe?” He asked. 

“No. It’s just lunch.” 

He clamored down, wiping his hands on a cloth that Groot held out to him. While he cleaned off, Gamora opened the bottle of water for Groot. His dexterity hadn’t entirely returned yet. 

“Smells good,” Rocket allowed, picking up a slice. 

“Mhm,” she took a slice for herself. Just fruit wasn’t really a sufficient meal for her, but it was the symbolism that counted. She could eat a protein ration later. 

“You have to have had something to miss it,” Rocket said eventually. 

Gamora chewed her bite slowly. Waited. 

“I never...I didn’t know it was even something missing at all for a long time,” he broke a piece of fruit in half then half again. “I had other things to think about. Murder. Mayhem. Where our next meal was gonna come from.” 

“Survival,” she affirmed grimly. 

“Yeah,” he sighed. 

“Maybe it isn’t missing.” 

“What do you mean?” Rocket nibbled at the destroyed bit of fruit. 

“You’re the only like you, so who’s to say what you’re supposed to be? If you don’t care about it, then you don’t. It isn’t right or wrong. It just...is.”

Groot offered Rocket some water and they shared the bottle between them. 

“Do you wonder where Quill actually stuck his dick with Darjit?” 

“No. There will be no wondering,” Gamora determined. “Because if I wonder too much, I’ll ask. And if I ask, he’ll tell me. In detail.” 

“Excellent point. I always knew you were smart,” Rocket gave her his best attempt at a smile, too many sharp teeth and black-spotted gums. “What about you, anyway?” 

“What about me?” 

“Well Peter is...open to all comers. Drax is one note, Groot does something with spores that I try not to think about too hard and I’m not interested. What about you?” 

“Oh,” she frowned. “There have been women. Rarely. I just..how do you trust someone with your body?” 

“Don’t look at me,” Rocket turned a piece of fruit over and over in his hands. “Intimacy and I aren’t on speaking terms.” 

“I am Groot,” Groot reached out and poked Rocket gently in the side. 

“You don’t count,” Rocket shrugged. 

“You count,” Gamora mouthed to Groot when Rocket looked away. Groot grinned at her. 

After that, Gamora found herself looking at Peter a little differently. She watched the way he talked to beings, the easy seduction routine that pattered out like a con man’s game. She found patterns in his appreciation, the turn of a hip or the curl of a tongue. He gravitated toward the loud, toward the admired. 

It just seemed so easy for him. Like it was nothing at all to bring someone into his home and be rendered helplessly naked before them. How easy it would be to snake a blade between those ribs while lying prone or kiss poison onto ready lips. 

“You okay?” He asked her in a drunken slur, leaning heavily on her as they made their way back to the ship. 

“Are you going to vomit?” She volleyed back. 

“Nope,” his smile was uneven, but real. “You’ve been all...quiet.” 

“I’m thinking.” 

“About meee?” Peter drawled, batting his eyelashes at her. “You’ve been looking.” 

“I’ve been thinking about how you can stand being intimate with strangers,” she admitted. He probably wouldn’t remember any of this anyway. 

“Um,” Peter tilted his head to one side and the then other. She could practically hear his brain sloshing around his beer soaked skull. “What?” 

“I just don’t understand how you can have sex with strangers.” 

“Who else would I have sex with?” He shrugged. 

“But doesn’t it...don’t you worry? That you’ll get hurt?” 

“I’d worry a lot more if it was someone I knew,” he countered. “I mean, my body is easy to fix. Heart is a lot tougher.” 

“Oh,” she adjusted her grip on him, steadying his gait. 

“But I’ve been told that I’m sort of fucked up that way, so feel free not to use me as a role model.” he coughed wetly. “Huh. Okay, I lied. I’m totally going to throw up.” 

She got him back to his bunk without either of them getting splattered in his stomach contents and counted that as a victory. Then she made herself a cup of tea and sat with it at the table for a long time. Rocket joined her hours later, smelling a little of liquor as he perched on the edge of the table. She offered him the sweet dregs of her cup and he took them without comment. 

They sat alone together, in the dark of their home. The others slept, their presence unseen, but felt through the walls. She felt contentedness settle around her shoulders, a blanket of comfort that she had not known for so many years. 

“Are you happy?” She asked Rocket, her voice barely a fragile whisper. 

“Yeah,” he held the mug between his hands and stared into the leaves. “Ain’t it a bitch and a half?” 

They were creatures of survival. They ran and fought with tooth and nail. And now they had landed here, tumbled through a thousand uncaring hands to this soft relenting space. Now there was at last, time to think. Time to ponder inadequacies and wants that couldn’t be filled with coin or drink. 

“Yeah,” she propped her chin in her hands. “It is. But it’s better than the alternative.” 

Rocket burped quietly, then set aside the mug. He dashed a look around the emptiness before climbing over the table and slipping into her lap. She could feel his heartbeat fluttering against her stomach as he closed his dark eyes. 

She fell asleep hunched over him, her head pillowed in her arms. He could have slid a knife between her ribs all through those dark hours, but she slept anyway and her dreams were full of a honey throated hum.


End file.
